starrycontractor:

downtroddendeity:

If one were so inclined, you could read a lot into how Hourai doesn’t look at all afraid here, as something of a microcosm of how little respect the Syndicate has for Hei, and contractors in general. Hourai should know exactly how dangerous Hei is- in his role within the police he gets reports day-to-day on contractor-related violence and every corpse Hei leaves behind, and as a Syndicate high-up he has access to Hei’s full file, so he’s probably one of the only characters who could give an informed estimate of his actual bodycount and should know that a large portion of it was done with no powers. He ought to have realized he’s trying to fight one of the most personally dangerous people on the planet, somebody his organization employs largely for his ability to kill just about anyone they point him at. And yet he doesn’t look at all scared about the prospect of trying to take him on in a fistfight, when Hei is clearly armed and would be able to kill him with no more than a second or two of contact even without the knives.

Hourai doesn’t grasp the threat Hei presents to him here because as part of the Syndicate, he’s never had to think of Hei, or any other contractor, as a person. They’re tools or liabilities or annoyances. The idea that Hei, personally and alone, could be a threat to him doesn’t even cross his mind, because he’s still thinking of him only as a tool that regularly failed to do its job, became a liability, and then wrecked everything he’d worked for because other tools failed to do their job and get rid of it. It doesn’t even occur to him to think of the situation as him facing an already-unpredictable hardened killer who’s probably murdered as many people as Hourai knows and has every reason in the world to want him dead, because all he’s thinking about is how angry he is at this insignificant thing that was supposed to be out of his way well before this and ruined everything.

Who then kicks his ass effortlessly, because that’s what happens when you underestimate the Black Reaper.

Nothing of value to add. Beautiful.

Really, the entire downfall of the Syndicate a la Evening Primrose was precipitated because the Syndicate refused to recognize contractors as humans, or even more generally, as beings with their own agency. Like you said, Hourai, and the Syndicate generally, views contractors as slaves to their rationality- dangle self-preservation in front of them, and they are logically forced over to your side. It’s rather fascinating to think about how little the Syndicate fears their own creations; even someone as utterly terrifying, and deserving of his reputation, as the Black Reaper has never meant anything to Hourai except his availability as his servant. The rest of the world sees BK-201 as a shadowy mercenary, made even more frightening because no one knows who the hell he works for, or his objectives. Even though contractors are compelled to act upon rationality (and while Hei doesn’t always, obviously, he tries to put up this front), this element of this unknown about Hei -who is controlling him? What do they want?- makes him even harder to deal with as an adversary. Hourai, on the other hand, knows exactly who Hei is and who he works for; this scare tactic doesn’t work on Hourai, because Hourai is partly responsible for making Hei what he is. Hourai’s own downfall is brought about almost because he knows so much about Hei- as you said, Hei’s actual body count, his real history- and thus Hourai finds it that much easier to mentally dismantle Hei into parts rather than see what Hei’s victims see, which is a whole being, albeit another front for the “real” Hei.